


things you said when no one else was around

by nellywrites



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nellywrites/pseuds/nellywrites
Summary: Zari and John have a quiet moment while taking a break from researching and perhaps reach a mutual understanding. Takes place between 'Ship Broken' and 'Freaks and Greeks'.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Comments: 25
Kudos: 92





	things you said when no one else was around

**Author's Note:**

> I am officially dipping my toes into this pairing. I am calling this one a warm up exercise, as I try to find their voices. If you enjoy it, please let me know!

The sudden whoosh of the lab door sliding open startles Zari out of the zoned out half slumber she'd slipped into. She makes quick work of dabbing at her damp eyes and tightens the blanket around her body before looking over her shoulder at whoever's come looking for her.

"Oh, it's you," she says as she takes in John's shape lingering in the doorway like a repentant dog holding an offering. Tea, it looks like. 

In the low light of the lab, Zari can just only make out a fleeting emotion pinching at the corners of John's eyes and the satisfaction she gets from it shames her. John's poorly concealed hurt turns into concern the longer she stares at him and he gets a good look at her. Zari drops her eyes to her lap and turns her back to him. She reaches for her phone and tries to make herself look busy. 

The seconds tick on like fat droplets from a leaky faucet, and John makes no move to come closer, like he’s still waiting for her to invite him in. Zari feels his gaze on her, hovering there like a haunting. Like those unwanted things in your closet that take up so much space, and yet you can’t bring yourself to get rid of.

John Constantine has been living rent free in her mind way too much these days and perhaps, not for the reasons he ought to.

"So, how's the research going?" Zari finally says when the silence grows too awkward. She wants whatever this is going to be done as soon as possible so she can go back to wallowing in the dark.

She hears the click of John’s shoes as he crosses the room. He stands in front of the sofa-- Behrad's sofa-- and Zari gives him a quick once over. He looks terrible in his unwashed hair and wrinkly shirt, sans tie for the first time. 

“We might've found something,” he says. “Left Nate and Charlie to work out the details.”

“How charitable of you to let someone else do something. Would've thought you'd take charge of that, too, especially when you're in such a hurry. After all, you know best, right?” she finishes her sentences with an upturn of her eyebrow and goes back to pretending to browse on her phone.

John’s mouth twitches slightly. He drops his head for a second, takes a breath and then faces her again.

“Actually, I wanted to come check on you, luv. You've been gone a while. Brought you this.”

John holds the cup of steaming tea in her line of vision, forcing her to put the phone down. The smell emanating from the cup is familiar in a way that reminds her of home. Of Maman and Baba. Of Behrad. She stares at the offering for a few seconds too long, lost as to where to fit this in. She takes the mug without a thanks and puts it down on the table in front of her.

“I needed a shower,” she says. “I wanted to get the stink of your old books off me. I was starting to smell like you.” She wrinkles her nose to drive the point home. 

She waits for the cutting comment about her vain princess ways, but it doesn’t come. 

Before, John had given as well as he'd gotten but now he's just taking her jabs, defeated, and the game suddenly isn't fun anymore. There is a vindictive fire kindling inside her. She doesn't like how good it makes her feel. Is this what grief does to you? Turn you into a person you don’t recognize? Or is this just her? Was this ugly, mean darkness always inside her?

But John looks as tired as she feels and Zari doesn’t want to pretend anymore, and the truth may prove to be more cutting.

“Actually, I went into the shower to have a cry,” she confesses.

John crosses the distance between them and drops to the couch beside her. Zari puts a pillow between them.

“Listen--” he starts.

“Don't.”

“Listen,” he says again and reaches for her hand. Zari lets him hold it. He hunches forward and searches for her eyes. She makes herself hold his stare, lets him look at her, really look at her. Her heart pounds in her ears and she licks nervously at her lips.

It's the first time in nearly a decade that she's let anyone see her without a perfect face of makeup on. Even when she'd confronted him the day Behrad died, mascara running down her face, she'd kept it on like it was war paint. She’d wanted him to see the grief marked on her face. But this is different. This is her, unfiltered, nothing to hide behind. It is both annoying and fitting that it'd be him. 

He rubs his thumbs over her knuckles and she tries to snuff out the butterflies gathering in the pit of her stomach. She breaks their eye contact and stares at their joined hands, hers neatly manicured, his nicotine stained.

“I know you're angry with me, cause you feel I took Astra's side over yours,” he says, “But it's not like that. I want Behrad back, too.”

Zari looks into his face again and sees that he is telling the truth. It’s the first time he’s actually said the words. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to hear him say them. 

“Behrad was my friend, but I can't not do this.”

A pearl of anger begins forming in the pit of her stomach and she tries to take her hand back, but John just holds it tighter.

“I know what you all see when you look at her. You see the Mistress of Hell. The woman who willingly sent the worst of humanity back upstairs for a sequel. But all I see is the nine year old girl who called me Uncle Johnny, the one who clutched at my shoulders and begged me not to let him take her when Nergal dragged her to Hell.” 

His tired, red-rimmed eyes beg her to try to understand.

“Saving Astra from the Hell I damned her to, it’s been my every waking thought for so long. And asking me to put it off, even for just a moment, it’s… it’s like--"

“Like asking me to put off saving my brother,” Zari says. There is no reproach in her voice this time. Just a resigned empathy. 

“I guess you do understand.”

Just like that. It feels like a truce. One he hasn’t entirely earned but Zari’s feeling charitable in her exhaustion. She just wants this to be over.

“I dunno, Zari,” he says with a deep sigh. “In another life, if I hadn’t been such a wanker, she could’ve been my kid.”

“Oh.” A cold thread wraps around Zari’s chest as Astra’s jibe about how John had chosen her mother over her lands where Astra had meant it to. “I see,” Zari says. She does take her hand back this time and then wishes she hadn’t. It makes her look like a jealous, insecure girl fishing for a compliment. It’s pathetic to feel jealous of a dead woman when she’s Zari Tarazi.

Except, if John and Astra have their way, that dead woman wouldn’t be a ghost for much longer.

“It was a long time ago, love,” John says and Zari nods. “But sometimes, a bloke’s gotta make peace with the mistakes of his past before he can meet the future. You understand?”

She wants to counter, _what about fixing the mistake that got my baby brother killed_ , but that’s not really what he’s talking about, is it?

“Yeah, totally.”

She finally takes a sip of the tea and hums in appreciation when the warm spicy notes hit her mouth. Proper Persian black tea.

“Did you ask Gidget how I like my tea?” she teases and much to her pleasure John suddenly can’t meet her eyes.

“Just drink the bloody thing before it gets cold, yeah?”

She tucks her legs under her body so that she’s facing John now and readjusts the blanket. The blanket that still smells like her baby brother. Being wrapped up in the scent of her brother, sipping on tea that reminds her of home makes her sad again in an entirely new way. She reaches for the strip of photos resting on the table across from them.

“What you got there, luv?”

Zari angles the photos so that they can both look at silly photo booth poses.

“That’s the night I found out who he really is- was.” She lifts her wrist and gestures to the totem.

John nods in acknowledgement and grows quiet again. It’s slightly disconcerting to see him lost for words, when he usually has so much to say. 

“You know what, I’ve got something to show you, stay right there, love. I’ll be right back.” 

He’s only gone for a few minutes and when he comes back he’s holding a photograph of his own. He drops to the sofa again and hands her the photograph. 

Zari puts her tea mug down on the table and holds the photo with both hands. In the photograph she can see John in a bar, posing next to who she assumes is the barmaid. The woman is wearing bright blue eye shadow, very retro chic. There is something familiar about her eyes that Zari can’t quite place.

“That’s my mum,” John says before she can ask for clarification. “One of my first proper missions with this crazy lot we wound up in London just five years before my birth and I knew I had to go see her. Might be my only chance. She died in childbirth. And your brother tagged along to chaperone me. It was his idea to take the picture. He even came up with a story to make it seem less weird.”

“He did that?” Zari’s voice breaks as she wonders at her brother's thoughtfulness.

“And then we got kicked out of the pub when I tried to kick my old man in the bollocks. Oh don’t look at me that way, he deserved it.”

“Thank you for telling me that story.”

John catches a stray tear with the pad of his thumb and tucks her hair behind her ear. 

“We’re gonna figure this out, Z.” He’s never called her that before, but it feels natural. 

It’s not the first time he’s said they’ll bring Behrad back, but it’s the first time that it sounds like a promise, and she believes him. 

He still hasn’t said sorry, though, and she suspects it’s because he doesn’t want to lie to her. Zari’s beginning to understand the ways in which regret is a terribly complicated monster.

“I know,” she says.

He gives her a slow smile, like he did at his house when they found the ring. She reaches for her tea again, so she can tell herself the heat blooming in her face is the tea’s fault. 

“We should go back and help the team,” she says as she begins to straighten, but John on the other hand stretches his legs on the table and leans back on the sofa.

“Nah, we should stay here for a spell.”

“But--”

“Let’s just have a wee rest, yeah? They’ll call us if they need us.” 

He fluffs the pillows and sinks back into the sofa, closing his eyes with a deep sigh. He really does look exhausted. She moves the cushion that’s between them, removing the barrier and throws the blanket over his thighs, keeping them both under its heat. John throws his arm over the back of the couch and even though Zari doesn’t settle back into it, she can still feel it there.

“John?” she waits until he makes a hum of acknowledgement, “Tell me a story?”

He doesn’t answer for long enough that she worries he’s fallen asleep when his raspy voice rumbles, “Did B ever tell you about the time he turned into a lizard?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> holler at me on tumblr: @starcitysirens


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